Reflection

The kiss broke too easily and he knew something had changed. He looked evenly up at the one eye and confirmed his assessment.

Lavi was not behind the little green looking glass.

The grip on his shoulders was tightening and moving towards his neck. The arms were shaking and the mouth was snarling. He sat back against his headboard and did not move even when pink marks appeared on his shoulders and throat because the grip wanted blood.

"You…" the voice was from his body but it was not his voice, "you're lying to me."

Kanda blinked and stared blankly at the catastrophe you sometimes get when you fuse too many stresses inside one being. He stepped down from the black looking glasses and looked away inside himself.

"I can't! I can't and you know it!" And the blows started with a slap, two, three. "It's not true, it's not true but you're lying!"

An open hand convulsed and knuckles took the place of palms. The limp arms of the limp body remained so while Kanda held his ears inside his empty shell and prayed the knocking would stop soon. The fists were gaining momentum and Kanda's blood was on the face and hands but Lavi couldn't find the window to gaze out and stop them.

"I can't love you! I can't, can't, can't, but you want me to! You're making me so you can be happy, but I can't!" Both fists at once. Purple was bleeding over the cheeks. "I CAN'T!"

Blink.

"I CAN'T!"

Mouth jarred open.

"I CAN'T!"

Eye swollen shut.

"I-" He picked up his looking glass and stared out with a hand over his mouth. Lavi's eye grew huge in the dark, dark room and his fists went lax on the bloodied face and slid slowly down, a warm trail from cheeks to jaw to neck to shoulders to biceps to chest. His body spasmed, twice, thrice. The bruises were dark like the fine thick contoured lines his fingers futilely traced to wipe away, the death brought on by a few more lives he wanted to destroy.

And the blank stare that made him jolt sparked before dulling with pain. Kanda held up his looking glass again even though the black lenses burned his swollen hands. He saw Lavi but he couldn't wave. He swallowed and ignored the fiery protest of his crushed throat.

"Yu…" Lavi was feeling each blow as he took in the tender face he couldn't apologize for. The green spyglass was turned to full zoom and desperately seeking the black pair. Kanda's fingers gripped his shirt and pulled it up around his shoulders as he swung his feet out of bed and headed for the door fast, blankly. "Yu!" His voice was too choked for the name to carry far. "Kanda!" Lavi followed, reaching out. His hand touched his sleeve at the elbow. Kanda turned around and flashed a look that wasn't angry or hurt or anything that would have been okay.

Repulsion over fear.

The snap of the sleeve away from his grasp was enough. Shards of green crashed down at their feet with a tingling cacophony that created the teeny pulverized pieces it would be hell to sweep up. Kanda's hand slipped lax off the door. He put the hand to his mouth as he turned, horrified, to the catastrophe you sometimes get when you fuse too many stresses within human emotions.

"Gomen, Lavi… gomen…" He dropped to his knees to be at Lavi's level, folding the bent head into the crook of his shoulder and feeling the warm gasps of breath that further heated the growing rill of salty tears. He passed a hand across the tensing back and murmured the shards whole again.

"Yu…"

"Ssh… no talking."

"Kanda… I didn't mean to hurt you…"

"No words… no words, I do not hurt for long…"

"Yu…" The looking glasses made contact sheepishly as he rotated his head on his shoulder.

"You are sorry."

The swelling was already fading.

The purple was going down.

Kanda smiled sideways softly. Lavi blinked a stray tear from his eyelashes in dumb disbelief.

"I love you." Kanda pressed him back and down with his thin body, resting their foreheads together.

People died for hitting him.

Lavi was very much alive.

His hair hung in red sprigs, sparsely covering the empty eye. Kanda inside waved from his looking glasses and Lavi inside looked up shyly before bashfully offering a feeble salute. Kanda wove his arms around Lavi's neck and shut his eyes. He wanted to save Lavi from his history. Lavi breathed in the soapy fumes from the soft hair tickling his nose. He wanted to save Kanda from his time. But their wants were impossible.

A looking glass is not for looking; it is for seeing. It's a mirror.

Hopelessness looks the same in green or black.